ASRock Beebox Review: A Fanless Braswell UCFF PC

Final Words

The ASRock Beebox N3000-NUC provided us with the opportunity to evaluate Braswell in a non-mobile form factor. We have already looked at the performance of Intel's Airmont in the Microsoft Surface 3. However, that was in a much more thermally limited configuration. The Beebox is also the first UCFF PC sporting Cherry Trail, and it shows what can be done with power-efficient 14nm SoC in the NUC form factor without active cooling. The fanless aspects make the Beebox suitable for a wide variety of applications including embedded and industrial uses. The surprising aspect is the use of industrial-grade DRAM and SSD modules despite the $220 price point.

ASRock manages to cram in plenty of features in the small chassis - a USB Type-C port in the front panel, two full-sized HDMI ports and one full-sized Display Port outputs in the rear along with the usual NUC ports - three USB 3.0 and one GbE LAN slot. There is also an IR receiver (and a bundled mini-remote) for wireless control of media playback on the PC. The Beebox is also the smallest NUC that we have seen with support for a 2.5" drive. It is also the only NUC we are aware of with three simultaneous display outputs.

The thermal solution might not be the most elegant or efficient passive cooling setup. However, it gets the job done - the system doesn't throttle and temperatures are maintained well below the junction temperature even under stress. If this is what needs to be done to keep the costs of passively cooled systems down, we don't mind. Consumers looking for more powerful passively cooled systems can always go for the Core-series units from vendors such as Logic Supply.

Despite the above positive aspects, there is scope for improvement from both Intel and ASRock's perspective:

• Intel needs to supply GPU drivers with HD audio bitstreaming (DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) enabled
• Intel could have improved CPU performance a bit more when compared to Silvermont (particularly given the huge improvement in GPU performance)
• ASRock's chassis design could do with some improvement - a metal chassis would probably bring down the idling temperature below 50 C. In the case that plastic is unavoidable due to cost issues, a perforated top similar to the Zotac ZBOX C-series units could help improve aesthetics.
• ASRock is known for its premium mini-PCs, and it would have been interesting to see what they could have done with the Intel Core-M in a similar chassis.

The Beebox N3000-NUC series starts at $140, and a ready-to-go build without the OS is just $220. This is very good value for the money. In comparison to other fanless mini-PCs, there is almost no pricing premium. However, we get all the performance to power ratio advantages that come along with 14nm silicon. ASRock has also managed to put in plenty of premium features without driving up the price.